“Fallout 3″ offers deep gameplay, GOTY experience

What do you get when you combine “Mass Effect,” “Fable,” “Oblivion,” “Bioshock” and “Call of Duty?” Here’s a hint – you get one killer game.

Edit: Bethesda Softworks featured my review on their Web site. Here’s the blurb:

The Houston Chronicle has posted a review and a 9.7 out of 10 score for Fallout 3 stating, “There is no doubt in my mind that this game is one of the worthy contenders of Game of the Year.”

Source: http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/home/news.php

Bethesda Softworks, known for the award-winning game series “Elder Scrolls,” stepped up to the plate with a very difficult task. They had an opportunity to stray from the “Scrolls” path with “Fallout 3,” an apocalyptic RPG that takes place years after nuclear war devastates the United States. Despite the daunting task, Bethesda has delivered an effort that is truly worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as “Oblivion.”

Available on the Sony PS3, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and PCs, “Fallout 3″ starts out with your birth after nuclear war. Several people, in an effort to preserve their way of life and existence, retreated to Vaults, an underground system of tunnels and living areas. Your parents delivered you in one of the Vaults – and you stay until you hit 19. During the beginning of the game, you hear from several Vault residents about the horrors of venturing outside of the Vault. From the way they talk about life outside of the Vault, you’d think it is certain death when you leave.

The customization in “Fallout 3″ is unreal. You can choose your sex, race, your facial features and your name as an infant. Unfortunately, your dad doesn’t say your name (Maybe Mad Skillz is too difficult to pronounce) but he does offer some wisdom early on. Your first real task is to walk to him. You learn how to jump, pick up items and unlock doors, gates.

After you finish your first assignment, things fast forward to your 10th birthday. You meet the Overseer, the head honcho in the Vault, his daughter and several other residents. You also meet your first enemy – this older boy and his gang. You can be nice and ignore his comments, or be like me – confrontational.

This is one of the few times where I was disappointed. The three boys surround your character and if you choose, you can escalate the situation and fight. However, there is no tutorial on how to fight – I got clobbered. You have to use your L-R triggers to throw your fists/fire your weapon. Having your father teach you basic hand-to-hand combat would have been a very nice (and needed) tutorial.

Following your party, you head to meet Jonas, one of your father’s co-workers. You receive your first weapon – a BB gun. You enter a tutorial on how to fire it. There is a semi-targeting system – you activate it by pressing the R bumper on your controller. It will lock in on the targets and allow you to shift where you want to aim. There is a zoom feature that allows you to zoom in, but don’t expect it to be very useful. Deeper in the game, if you target an enemy unaware to your presence, you can hit them with a quick-death blow. You access the target lock feature with the R bumper.

After finishing your weapons training, you pose with your dad to take a picture of the moment. Then, you are teleported six years to age 16. You are on your way to take the GOAT – it’s a test that will determine what your job will be. You can also elect to help the Overseer’s daughter out, who is cornered by the bully from your party and his crew. Of course, I clobbered the entire game and earned some respect from her. I didn’t initially – I decided to wimp out and she cussed me out.

When you finish the test – don’t worry, it’s multiple choice and you can’t fail – you are teleported again, this time to age 19. Without giving away too much of the plot, you are *forced* to leave the Vault – or die trying.

After leaving the Vault, depending on how much experience you have earned in your escape, you will likely level up. There are tons and tons of options at this point. You will be able to use your experience points to enhance S.P.E.C.I.A.L. – a type of body skill enhancer (not like Viagra!). You can choose from upgrades like Strength, Endurance, Intelligence and Charisma – and each will definitely aid you in your journey.

When you reach Level 2, you can add Perks to your character. Perks will allow you to add points to one specialty – for instance, I added the Lady Killer perk to my character. It allows my character to do +10 damage against female opponents. However – and this is why I added it – outside of combat, my character can access unique dialogue with the opposite sex. Every two levels, you are allowed to add additional Perks.

If you are familiar with “Elder Scrolls,” you know the dialogue is awesome. “Fallout 3″ keeps the trend going. You can interact with most NPCs, unless they are attacking you (“Hay, bud, lay off!”). The dialogue is pretty engaging most times – but falls short if you miss the question you want to ask. I decided to ask people about my missing father – but didn’t want to come off as a whiner. When I tried to ask a guy about my dad, he said ‘I am not supposed to talk about it.’ It would have a good move for me to just ask him to start off with.

The second gripe I have about “Fallout 3″ is the streaming map. Oh, I love the fact I can run across the huge sandbox with an ounce of load times. That’s not my problem. I can even look past the load times in certain areas. It’s amazing to be able to walk/run long distances and watch the 360 keep up seamlessly. What I have problem with is – the constant disc spinning. I have a brand-new Xbox 360 Arcade (with my old HD) and the 360 sounded like it was a Southwest Flight 1703 out of Hobby on the runway, waiting for clearance to take off. I love the streaming areas but the noise dampened the experience.

If you are looking for repeated areas like in “Mass Effect,” look elsewhere. The scope of the landscape is breathtaking. As much as I loved “Mass Effect,” the repeated environments made me think the developers got lazy and wanted to just finish the game. In “Fallout 3,” it shows me the devs were creative from end to end.

The graphics are good – the facial expressions, the elements, loading screens are sweet. Though it is futuristic in feel, the 50s-style elements – from the burned-out shells of ranch homes, to the antique cars and the Vault boy logos – reminds me of “Bioshock.” It really amazes me watching the helpful loading screens. If you love “Nick at Nite,” you will feel right at home.

The sounds are impressive. You can hear the growls of feral dogs far off. You can hear the screams from random Raiders coming to end you. I really think the soundtrack is impressive.

The gameplay is good – if you have logged tons of time in “Oblivion,” you have nothing to worry about. To keep track of your items (and yes, you can buy/sell items and even build customized weapons), you have a management tool called a Pip Boy. It allows you to teleport to locations, keep track of your items, your health (more on this later) and even allows you to target areas and map them with a GPS-like feature.

You won’t be bored as you roam the Wasteland. You will be bombarded with tons of side quests. You can brush people off over their offers, but they aren’t going to be wandering off. They will sit back and wait for you to make up your mind. Some of the side quests are absolutely nuts – and some quests can drastically alter the story. You get jumped on by a Raider – you kill him/her and the body stays throughout the game.

You have several weapons to choose from – ranging from lead pipes to weapons that can fire – no joke – ashtrays and teddy bears. Imagine getting OWN3D by a Cabbage Patch Doll.

You can also use several items to remain well. If you get radiation sickness or addicted to drugs (I am not making this up), you can consult your local healthcare professional to get you back in the game. Hungry? You can harvest the meat from a variety of animals you kill. Be forewarned – if you consume animals, they will raise your RAD levels. You can also use drugs to raise your health levels, increase your reaction times and the like. However, use with caution. If you use them enough, you will be addicted. You can fight it, but the withdrawals will make your character go nuts. A definite and unexpected dose of realism (as I eye my can of Red Balls – it gives you wangs!) that made my day.

Controls in the game rock when you are in first-person mode. However, the game goes rogue when you are in third-person. It’s horrible. Your character may walk in one direction, but when you make a quick turn, you’ll swear you are watching Michael Jackson’s “Moon Walker” video. Thanks but no thanks to third-person mode in “Fallout 3.”

Despite the warts, “Fallout 3″ is a solid game that will suck you in and keep you for hours on end. If you enjoy RPGs with a hint of FPS, this game rocks. It’s such an amazing game that does so many things right – and really shines and stands out as one of the best games I have played this year (I still <3 "Grand Theft Auto") out there. I think this game will consume several lives this holiday season – and since its available on the PS3 and 360, most gamers can explore the Wastelands on the console of their choice (Sorry, Wii).

I highly recommend taking "Fallout 3" for a spin. Block off some time to play this – and don't expect to pick it up, play it for a few minutes and drop it. No, sir. It will arrest your attention and keep you coming back for more.

The skinny: Futuristic RPG that offers elements of great FPS, has tons of customizations and streaming landscapes.

The good: Large scope, great gameplay, awesome dialogue and so much to do, you’d be hard-pressed to get bored. There’s something for RPG fans and FPS fans too.

The bad: Third-person controls, loud disc spinning, all sorts of tutorials, but no basic fight tutorial.

The verdict? 9.7 (out of 10) – There is no doubt in my mind that this game is one of the worthy contenders of Game of the Year. Despite shortcomings, this game really shines. I definitely love the ability to get in with guns blazing on enemies, or sneak around ala Solid Snake or Splinter Cell. I do think this game was well worth the wait, and could easily be the best game of 2008. I look forward to my journey all over the Wasteland.

17 Responses

Thanks for the review. I definitely plan on picking this up in the near future. I’m busy playing Fable II right now, so I think that I’m going to try to finish that out before getting Fallout 3. I’ve also got a copy of Deadspace coming my way, with at least Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead on my must buy list over the next month or so (and maybe Tom Clancy’s End War and Call of Duty: World at War as well). I need to make time for Fallout 3, though, because I’m quite confident that it’ll be my most preferred single player experience.

Sorry ,but I have to disagree with your opening statement. “What do you get when you combine “Mass Effect,” “Fable,” “Oblivion,” “Bioshock” and “Call of Duty?””. Aside from oblivion these games have nothing to do with FO3. All of them are superior in what they excel in. Mass Effect’s dialouge system, Fable’s changing world, Bioshocks awesome plasmids and CoD’s shooting. FO3 is great ,but it falls short at beating these games, or even matching them, at what they do best.

Also I’ve read basically everywhere else that you gain a perk everytime you level. Not every other time as you say.

Oh, and as for the disc spinning to loud, coming on the 17th we can download games to the 360’s harddrive. After that it will only spin on startup.

The throwback environs from “Bioshock” – the old skool cars, the ranch-style homes

The vastness of “Oblivion” – oh, it’s spread out and the melee combat.

The dialogue from “Mass Effect” – as well as the sexual undertone.

The morality aspect from “Fable.”

That is what I was thinking about as I played the game. The thing is – no, it doesn’t do as well as the other games mentioned – but it combines those aspects in one game. That is a huge task in itself.

As far as the perks, maybe I was half-sleep while I was playing it, but the Perks are obtained every other level. I am not perfect and yeah, I could be wrong. Thanks again for your comment!

Yeah, so basically I stopped by and picked up Fallout 3 on my way home from work… So, that means Fable II has been sidelined for the near future, but it’ll be played eventually. It’s a great game, but ever since Borderlands was announced about a year ago, I’ve been craving some “Mad-Max”, post-apocolyptic (sp?… it’s late…) action.

I love the customization in the game. I “gimped” my guy’s strength and endurance to increase his charisma and intelligence even more. I plan on having him be pretty much “lawful-neutral” when it comes to making decisions. He’s also a “gun freak” or whatever that skill is, and will be building and repairing weapons whenever possible.

This is definitely much more of what I was looking for, but Fable 2 could definitely be preferred more by someone looking for a more storybook sort of setting. I think that both are great games and will keep me busy over the next several months (along with several other great games that are coming out…).

To be fair, can we say at this point that Fallout 3 is based on two earlier role-playing games Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, that came out 10 years ago, by a company called Interplay. These two RPG’s are regarded in many quarters as the best RPG’s of all time. It is likely we will still be talking about all 3 Fallout’s for many years to come. Fallout 1 and 2 are the predecessors though, and Fallout 3 could not be what it is without them. Therefore they need some respect too amongst all this Fallout 3 mania!

Played the game some last night and I wasn’t very thrilled with the ‘gaming’ experience. I am a fan of the Fallout series and all the other products in the line wow’ed me right out of the box, but this title fell short of the mark. I’m not sure if it is the new 3D world or if it is the feeling that this is a watered down version of what the game should be. I know Bethesda has made choices in their designs to allow them to expand to the console market and it clearly shows when playing this game on the PC — always a sad thing to see because most of the PC players play games on the PC because of the added level of control you get from a mouse and keyboard compared to a dinky controller.

Anyhow, I will keep playing Fallout 3 and give it a fair shot at impressing me (it is still early in the game yet), but if it only maintains the current level of wow-factor I may get bored with it and play something else.

Just wanted to give people my perspective in case it helps you decide on when you may or may not want to buy this game.

the Perks are every other level. The game is better than all the other games mentioned in that no it doesn’t do any one thing better than what thoes other games do but it combines all the best aspects of thoes other games into one ammasing game wich all of the games that FO3 takes from do not do. Fall Out 3 is a great game and with the freedom to play in so many different ways and still reach the end and have that end be different depending on the choices you make gives this gave a HUGE replayability factor. Kenshin my suggestion to you would be to at least to try the game first before you start pointing out its short commings. Maby just maby you’ll actualy like it.

I did my first “dungeon crawl” last night, exterminating some mutated ant colony and thought it was amazing. This game is awesome, in my opinion, and I would love to see more games like this over the years. I could certainly see myself playing this multiple times, trying out different approaches to solving in-game quests.

My dude is some brainiac, smooth-talking guy that happens to have solid skill with Small Arms. He’s actually pretty solid with repairing his own weapons too, so he’s regularly improving/modifying his weapons rather than always paying vendors to do it for him. He’s been relatively neutral to this point, more focused on his own survival and regularly expects rewards/payment for his good deeds, but also tends to lean to the side helping others (and doing the “right” thing) when he can. Since he’s skilled in Small Arms, he regularly switches between an “AK-47″, a 10mm pistol, and a hunting rifle when he’s putting down threats.

I have to admit, this is the most fun that I can recall in a single-player experience. I usually prefer to play multiplayer games, but this game seems so detailed and involved that I’m absolutely hooked. Now, if only they could turn this in to a 2-4 player experience or maybe even a MMO…

@ SHunter. Thanks for your recommendation. I just got Fable 2 and know how much I loved the first one. Do you think I will drop Fallout 3 for Fable 2? I am going to play it regardless, but if I am going to fall for Fable 2, I’d love to know beforehand 😉

I’ve actually shelved Fable 2 for Fallout 3 and won’t be going back until after my first play-through. I personally prefer Fallout 3 much more than Fable 2. Not because Fable 2 isn’t a good game, because it is; it is great. I just think that Fallout 3 is EXACTLY the type of single-player experience that I’ve been looking for. That being said, Fable 2 does some VERY AMAZING things. Fable 2 has a more drastically changing world, a more-involved relationship system, and a more-involved financial system, including buying houses, leasing houses, doing “jobs”, “buying low” and “selling high” of items, and includes the ability to add “vanity” to the characters’ lives. It’s definitely a great game and I’m sure that there’s plenty of people that might find it equal or better than Fallout 3. However, I’m definitely a “Fallout guy” and am “totally stoked” by what I’ve seen of Fallout thus far.

I just really hope plenty of other developers are watching and will build on all of this good stuff that we’ve seen from Oblivion, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Fable 2, etc.

One thing I have noticed that I definitely do not like is they have used the same voice actors they used in Morrowind AND Oblivion! It’s one thing to use voices for two Elder Scrolls games, but Fallout is a completely different world, and surely demanded the use of different voice actors? It is little things like this, consciously done by the developer, that stops video gaming being like movies. The care just isn’t there 100%. Surely Bethesda would have known that people who put 500 hours into Oblivion would recognise the voices?! Every time I hear a recognisable Oblivion voice, it takes me right out of the game, and immersion goes with it!

I guess that I’m lucky that I pretty much missed out on playing Oblivion (although I bought it a while ago and hope to play it at some point…). I can’t really say 100% sure how I’d feel if I had. I do know that I usually let myself be immersed and try to avoid getting locked in on disappointing details (like unbelievable plot trees, minor bugs, typos, etc.). I can say this; I don’t keep thinking of Liam Neeson when I hear the father talk… I think of the in-game character, regardless of how many other times I’ve heard his voice in movies.

Oh yeah, and congrats Willie on having your review linked to from the Fallout 3 main website. I went there last night to look in to reporting a bug (going to V.A.T.S. with a weapon that has no ammo can leave you stuck there, since you can’t shoot, but it won’t let you hit “B” to back out… I was comparing accuracy percentages on my weapons to view differences between different types of pistols and rifles) and the main page was referring to positive reviews, including one from the Houston Chronicle linking to here.